


Kind Words and Guns

by partypaprika



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-22 17:49:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17667254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/pseuds/partypaprika
Summary: From the first, there's something different about Jamie Romano, one of John Rossi's new men. He makes John sit up and take notice, that's for sure.





	Kind Words and Guns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eidetic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidetic/gifts).



> eidetic, I loved getting to write for this pairing so I'm so happy that you requested it! I hope that you enjoy!

The man walked into the room while John was going through the books with Henry in his office at the Rosedale warehouse. Henry’s office was in the back, dark brown ledger books lining his walls that stretched back at least ten years for all of John’s operations. Henry was a tiny man, wizened and hunched over. John had been told that Henry had a wicked temper and was crabby at the best of times, although for as long as John had known him, he’d been unfailingly polite to John. Maybe he was scared of John—if so, then he was even smarter than even his excellent bookkeeping skills proclaimed.

“You’ll see the numbers on the set of stills that we’ve added to the Graumen facility,” Henry said. He’d been discussing the Graumen facility, located on the Missouri side of the city, a few blocks west of Spring Valley Park. As Henry kept talking, John watched the stranger out of the corner of his eyes. The man was attractive, with darker skin than most of the men that John worked with, but it was more than a superficial appearance that drew John’s eye.

The man carried himself differently—his shoulders had a self-possessed set to them, no sign of the usual deference that most of John’s men held when they were in the presence of their bosses. The man seemed angry, almost, his lips hard as he leaned in to whisper to Joe Marcello, John’s right-hand man, waiting by the door with one hand carefully placed on top of his holstered gun.

The man waited a few moments for a response from Joe, his body unnaturally still until Joe murmured something low back to him, and then he left the room. “That doesn’t explain why we’re having issues moving the product,” John said to Henry. Henry had been with John long enough that he knew that any perceived lack of attention was anything but and so he began explaining how they’d had difficulties getting the cops to back off of the Graumen location.

John sighed and spoke to Joe just over his shoulder. “Bring Officer Cooper over to the club tonight—I’m sure we’ll be able to come to an arrangement. One way or the other.”

“Of course,” Joe said and he waved over one of the boys waiting near the edges of the room. The boy ran over, his shoes shuffling against the ground—too big for him—and eagerly took Joe’s message before running out of the room.

“Let’s move onto the Vermon sales,” John said and Henry nodded and picked up another book.

 

 

 

John saw the man again a few days later when everyone was at the Blue Spades Club, a few hours from dawn or thereabouts, John’s men loose and happy since the Graumen shipments had finally started going out again. The Blue Spades Club was _the_ place to be out in Kansas City, despite the fact that there was no marked entrance for the club on 12th street. And it was currently swinging—the stage was occupied by the Hot Devils Band, and the dance floor was crowded with couples.  

John sat at his table in the back with one of the showgirls, Mary Anne, perched on his knee and rubbing herself against him. John was indulging her because it was good for business and it was good for _business_ when the man came in, opening the door for Joe and Percy Lombardi, who was in charge of running all of the stills out of the Northwest portion of the city for John.

All three of them came up to John, Joe and Percy smiling as they said hello before the maître d’ found them a table nearby.

“Who’s the third?” Al Costa, one of John’s protection guys, asked to Gene Ferri who was sitting next to him.

“That’s Jamie Romano,” Gene said. “He’s Sal’s cousin, from up in Chicago.”

“Yeah? Sal’s got a cousin who married a— ”

“I wouldn’t say that, if I were you,” Gene said. “Jamie’s a good kid.”

“When did you get all sensitive like a dame?” Al said. “You on the rag or something?”

Gene ignored Al and turned back to the entertainment.

“You want to take this somewhere quieter?” Mary Anne asked from her position on John’s lap.

After a moment of deliberation, John scooped her up, Mary Anne squealing loudly, causing a number of people to turn towards John. More than a few women looked a little jealous of John’s girl. After all, few could accuse John of being unattractive—he’d broken his nose a few times when he was younger, but he had it on good authority that it made him look rakish. He’d been told that he looked like Robert Vignola, but John believed that the more apt comparison was that Robert Vignola looked like him.

John walked to the side door, which led to the backstage area, Al a careful three paces behind John. Mary Anne whispered in John’s ear about what exactly she wanted John to do to her once they made it to her changing room (although based on her suggestions, she would have preferred the nearest flat surface). They had just entered the hallway, Mary Anne kissing John’s throat, when a stranger stepped out of the shadows on the far end of the hallway. In the half-second before John instinctively dropped to the ground, he recognized him as one of those low-lifes that John vaguely remembered from the South Franklin Gang. The man didn’t waste much time, a gun appearing from nowhere as he began shooting at John.

Due to some heavenly blessing, there was a side table in the hallway, and John immediately pushed Mary Anne behind it as he ducked for its cover as well, and he pulled out his gun. Al burst through the doorway behind John, already squeezing out his first shot which went wide. Out of the corner of John’s eye, he saw Jamie rush through the door as well, his gun drawn, and John heard the rest of the club turning into chaos as they realized that they were hearing gun shots.

Even though the South Franklin Gang kid was still shooting wildly in the direction of Jamie, John and Al, Jamie didn’t lose his cool. As John got off a shot, he saw Jamie take careful aim, and fire two shots in quick succession, hitting the kid in the center of the chest. The kid got off a few more shots that went even wider, bullets now ricocheting off the ceiling, but then he collapsed.

John took quick stock of the hall. There were bullet marks everywhere on the wall, but aside from the complete sap from the South Franklin Gang, no one seemed to be dead.

“Doll, you alright?” John asked.

Mary Anne looked up and nodded tearfully, no small amount of hero worship in her eyes. John tried not to sigh.

“Al, you get her situated in her room, I’ll be by later,” John said.

“Boss, you sure?” Al said. “You pay me to stay near you.” Presumably John also paid Al to get of the people shooting at John before they got anywhere near his person, which John chose not to mention. When John didn’t say anything, Al gulped and immediately hustled Mary Anne away.

Joe and Percy and a host of other men had come through the door near the end of the shooting—and everyone was talking loudly. “Everyone, can it,” John said loudly and everyone stopped. John nodded to Joe, who came over immediately.  “What an amateur. Get that cleaned up,” John said, gesturing at what was left of the kid. He walked back to the door to the club and announced even louder, “And drinks on the house.” The noise in the room, which had been slowly building, immediately erupted into loud cheer and boisterous chatter.

“I want extra security out front and I want to know how this happened in our club by the time that I leave here,” John said. He locked eyes with Joe. “And I don’t care if this was a renegade member of the South Franklin Gang, they’re done. I have had enough of their bull shit—they have now broken my last ounce of patience. They can leave town or face the consequences. Make it happen.”

Joe nodded. From just behind Joe, John saw Jamie go pale. Interesting, John thought. A kid in the mob with a queasy stomach. He hadn’t been so queasy when he’d stepped through the door and shot the South Franklin Gang flunky with two cool pops.

John started to turn and then stopped himself. “And I want to see that kid in the morning,” he said. Both John and Joe knew that he was referring to Jamie. Jamie wasn’t one of those young kids that hung around—he was well into his twenties, but John knew that the designation would rankle. From a few feet away, Jamie stiffened, almost imperceptibly.

When John got to Mary Anne’s changing room, he opened the door to find her prettily arrayed on her chaise lounge. Her dress had been carefully folded and placed to the side. She wore only her knickers, garters and brassiere. John appreciated the initiative.

“Come here,” John said and Mary Anne immediately rose and moved towards him. John pulled Mary Anne into a kiss and when they broke apart, he nudged Mary Anne towards her vanity and carefully undid her knickers. John unbuttoned his belt and his pants, not bothering to remove them, and gripped Mary Anne’s hips tightly as he entered her.

As John thrust in, again and again, Mary Anne moaning below him, he thought back to Jamie and when he came, spending inside Mary Anne with a loud groan, he saw couldn’t help but imagine Jamie in front of him instead, taking everything that John had to give.

 

 

 

The next morning, John read the Kansas City Star while he ate breakfast. Marlene, his cook, had prepared crispy bacon, hashed browns and sauce and eggs over easy, which John took in as he read about the shooting of four men in their apartments. The police had arrived too late to apprehend any suspects and were investigating the case.

“I take it that they didn’t seem all that amenable to leaving,” John said when Joe entered the room.

“They seemed remarkably stuck on Kansas City,” Joe said, where he was carefully waiting near the entrance to the dining room.

“Good work,” John said to Joe. Al stood a few feet away, playing with his gun. Joe nodded curtly.

“The Williams Street boys want to meet with you,” Joe said.

“They’re the ones that have been running that establishment on the South side?” John asked. Joe nodded. John took a moment to think—the Williams Street boys had started making trouble earlier that year, operating near Gillham. They’d been lying low so far, but John had been keeping an eye on them almost since their inception. Better to get this buttoned up now than have this turn into another South Franklin Gang mess.

“Alright,” John said. “But you make sure that you impress upon them how thankful they should be that we’re willing to meet with them.”

“Absolutely,” Joe said and then he was gone.

John finished skimming through the rest of the paper and then stood up and turned to Al. “I’m going to go to my study, to do some work. Send Jamie in when he gets here.”

“He’s already here,” Al said.

John raised an eyebrow at that. He checked his pocket watch. It was not even eight in the morning yet. “Send him in then.”

 

Al let Jamie into John’s study and John rose to shake Jamie’s hand before gesturing at Jamie to take a seat opposite John at his desk.

John took a few minutes to study Jamie, cataloging his features. Jamie was just about as tall as John, but thin and lean where John was broad and built. Jamie held himself tightly, like he was poised to attack. It was a good trait for a mobster, John thought. It would certainly serve Jamie well.

Jamie was attractive, no two ways about it, but his clothes downplayed it. He wore a grey-stripped wool suit—the shoulders hanging too wide for him and the pants were ill-fitting. Underneath his jacket, he had a pale blue shirt that John would have bet was mercerized cotton instead of the silk that his men usually preferred to wear. He wondered if Jamie was cheap or oblivious.

If Jamie was perturbed by John’s casual perusal, he didn’t show it. Instead he looked back at John, as if daring him. John was more than a little amused by Jamie’s directness, although he made sure to keep his face neutral.

“You’ve come to us recently,” John said, “in the past year. Tell me, James, how did you come to be working for Percy?”

“After high school, I started working for a few attorneys as a clerk, but they didn’t pay so great. So, my cousin, Sal, who works with Max in Chicago got me a job with Mr. Lombardi here since I needed to stay close to my mother. At first, I ran errands. Eventually, he had me start working with the books and your operations.”

“Are you good at numbers?” John asked.

Jamie looked John squarely in the eye. “Yes, Mr. Rossi.”

“Good. You’re getting a promotion. Starting tomorrow, in addition to what you do for Percy, you’re going to start working with Joseph and report back to me on the downtown accounts.” Downtown was where most of John’s gambling operations were, although he had a few bookies and betting parlors on the outer parts of the city. According to Percy, Jamie had been keeping the books and helping with the stills in the Northwest. Percy was good at what he did—he’d been with John since the beginning, back when their bootlegging operations had been little more than small potatoes. If he thought that Jamie was good, then Jamie was good. But John wanted to see if Jamie was even better than that. He’d been a fast thinker the previous night and John was willing to bet that Jamie was a man who liked a challenge.

“Of course, Mr. Rossi,” Jamie said.

“And have Joe get you some shirts—tell him to put it on my account.”

“But—” Jamie started. John raised an eyebrow and Jamie immediately fell silent. “Of course, Mr. Rossi,” he said after a second.

 

The next afternoon, John went to visit the Washington facility, a building which currently housed three large stills in the crossroads of Kansas City. It was the middle of the day when John, Al and Joe walked into the Miller Temp Agency off of Broadway Street.

A cute little receptionist dimpled prettily at John when he entered. “Why, hello, Mr. Rossi,” she said. “You can just go straight through to the back—I’ll tell Mr. Lombardi that you’ve arrived.”

“Thank you, Janine,” John said and headed for the back. The trio passed through one set of doors into a spacious office room. There was an innocuous door in the back of the room, but John could hear all the bolts being unlocked from the other side and after a minute, it swung open to reveal Percy.

Percy carefully locked the door back up as John stepped onto the Washington main floor. It was the middle of the day, so the facilities were in full operation, with several dozen men bottling, packaging and moving boxes. As they passed through, the men stopped and nodded at John, which John returned.

Percy gave them a general update on the facility—production was up, especially on the whiskey, but they were having trouble moving it. The same old story. Percy and his boys had been working on it for some time, but it had been a crap shoot each time a shipment went out whether or not some policeman would cotton on to the flagrant violation of the country’s newest ill-advised amendment.

There was only so many times that John’s policemen wanted to look the other way before it started getting difficult for them. While John could pay them to make them care, there were always one or two idiots who insisted on turning up their noses at perfectly good hard-earned cash. Why go looking for trouble that they didn’t need?

 

Lunch was at Giovanni’s, which had the best tortellini bologna and veal cutlets in Kansas City, John’s wonderful cook, Marlene, not withstanding. After Giovanni’s, it was to John’s gambling operations at the Orleans Flower Club, where John kept an office.

Jamie was waiting for them when John and Al arrived, and John wondered if Jamie had been waiting there long, or someone had tipped him off about what time John normally arrived. It didn’t really make a difference, but they meant different things about the kind of man that Jamie was, and John found himself curious.

They walked to John’s office, just up a flight of stairs and off the main floor where there were already a few dozen people playing cards, shooting craps and spinning the roulette wheels, despite the early hour. Once quitting time rolled past, the numbers in the joint would jump until it was packed, people crowding around and trying to get in on the action.

John casually registered Jamie’s movements as they moved. He wondered if Jamie was as good at numbers as he claimed or if that was a boast meant to impress the boss. He wondered why Jamie had really started working for the mob—if he’d gotten a job with lawyers, he should have been able to find plenty of willing employers who needed bookkeeping and reading.

Maybe he’d gotten into trouble with his old employers—stolen something—but he didn’t seem the type. Truth be told, John was surprised that Jamie was even in the mob. Off the cuff, he seemed like one of those men with a strict moral code, who’d never had to beg for food or steal some bread to make sure their baby sister didn’t die from hunger.

Once they were inside John’s office, away from the prying eyes on the floor and Al stationed outside, John relaxed into one of his chairs and motioned for Jamie to come forward.

“You’ve already made a review of the accounts?” John asked.

“No,” Jamie said.

John raised both eyebrows. He hadn’t previously assumed that Jamie was criminally stupid, but he’d been wrong before. On the other hand, Percy wasn’t known to suffer fools. John leaned forward, interested despite himself.

“It will take me a few days to get through your accounts,” Jamie said, “As they go back quite a few years. I may be good at calculating, but I’m not that good. But there’s something that you should know about that I found in one of your clubs’ books.” He put one of John’s accounting books for the Water Mill Club on the desk and then looked to John.

John gestured for him to continue. Jamie carefully opened up the notebook and flipped through it until he found what he was looking for. He pointed a finger at one of the numbers half-way down the page.

“Your expenses for equipment have been increasing for the last six months. But none of the gambling facilities have required major repairs.”

“Could have been to get new radios in for the horse races,” John said. “Things break around a club and require fixing or replacement. You’ve been with us long enough to notice that.”

“It’s not,” Jamie said. “Once, yes. Twice, three, four times, yes. Every single week for four months, increasingly? Unlikely.”

Jamie flipped the book over and pushed it in front of John. “March seventh,” he said John skimmed down the page past entries for itemized wages, coal, tobacco, electricity, until he got to what he was looking for—paid out cash for roulette cages and dealer tables.

Jamie flipped to the next week where John saw entries for another dealer table, several lamps and light fixtures and radios. Jamie turned to the next page, then the next. All charges that could have been written off at a first glance.

“Did someone break the chandelier in July?” John asked mildly, still skimming through.

Jamie shrugged enigmatically.

“I see,” John said. He turned through a couple more pages, skimming each of them. Jamie was good, John had to give him that. “It takes a lot of nerve to try to steal from a mobster,” John observed.

“It takes someone with nothing left to lose,” Jamie said.

John looked at Jamie—really looked at him. And Jamie looked right back until John couldn’t ignore the speeding up of his pulse and still neither one of them looked away.

Quietly, Jamie said, “Sir, what would you like me to do about this?”

“Keep going through the books,” John said, his voice coming out low.

Jamie gave a curt nod and then he was gone before John could catalogue the movement.

“Damn it,” John said when he was sure that he was alone. “Damn it!” After a minute, he forced himself to stand up and made his way to the door, where he nodded at Al on the other side. “Get me Joe,” he said. “I want to see him immediately.”

 

Joe, never one to be particularly eloquent, cursed loudly and at length when John presented Jamie’s findings to him. “I’m going to make that sack of shit wish he’d never been born when I find out who he is,” Joe said, once he’d gotten himself under control and his face had lost its blotchiness. “No one steals from us.”

“I want this done quietly,” John said. “Quietly. I want this guy disappeared when you find him. If you want to make it hurt, fine, but I do not want word getting out about this. You understand?”

Joe had been with John for so long because they were aligned on almost all things. This was not one of them—Joe favored big dramatic deliverances of justice. A message to the people, ‘ _See this, it will happen to you if you step out of line_.’

At times, it was appropriate to have the masses cowed and pleading. But loyalty and efficiency were not won through fear alone and John preferred the carrot to dangle in front of people. To show them the juicy and succulent food that they only had to reach for, to step to John’s tune. And if they were thinking of straying from John’s good path, well then additional incentive could then be used. A carrot ahead looked a lot better than the lashing that would await them from behind.

More than that, John’s business worked so well because everyone assumed that marching to John’s tune was the only option. Here, better to hide any thought of alternative, to not let people even comprehend that someone might steal from John. The lash would come for this unnamed thief in the night and it would be the last lashing he would know. John would be satisfied with that.

“Absolutely, boss,” Joe agreed. “This punk won’t even know what hit him.”

And that was that.

 

 

 

A week later, Gigi, one of John’s more regular dates, thought that she had won a coup by John’s allowance that she stay the night. She seemed determined to reward him as a wake-up the following morning. Even though it would delay the start of his morning, John wasn’t one to protest and when he finished, he flipped Gigi over and went down on her.

He took his time with Gigi and was surprised to hear someone talking outside of his room. “Do you know when Mr. Rossi will be up?” John heard Jamie say through the walls of his room, presumably to Al.

John smiled and looked up at Gigi. “I want to hear you,” he said and put his mouth to her. Gigi immediately obliged, letting out a shaky but loud moan that only increased in sound.

“Oh, it’ll be a while,” Al said, laughing.

When John emerged later, Gigi asleep in bed, Jamie was waiting next to Al, his jaw clenched tight. A subtle glance down revealed that Jamie’s jaw was not the only part of his body affected by John’s earlier activities. And well, well, wasn’t that interesting?

John inclined his head at Jamie and gestured for him to follow as he made his way to his office. Once they were there, John nodded at Jamie to start.

Jamie had completed his review of John’s books. He had a few more anomalies to report, but nothing that indicated betrayal, rather things to be improved, facilities that were not being maximized, men who were inept at handling John’s books or operations. Jamie’s analysis was imperfect, but still impressive.

At the end of his summary, Jamie sat up a little straighter and hesitated. “Out with it, boy,” John said.

“I am not a boy,” Jamie said before he could stop himself.

John smiled. “No, you aren’t. So don’t stammer like one.”

Jamie’s jaw clenched. “What will happen regarding the embezzlement?”

“Embezzlement?” John said, laughing. “That is a fancy word. You worked for lawyers alright. Here, there’s no embezzlement. It’s just a misunderstanding right now—one that Joe is taking care of.”

“Yes, sir,” Jamie said and even though he tried to neutralize his face, only an idiot would miss the way that his eyes were blazing. He met John’s eyes for a long moment before a muscle in his cheek jumped and he turned away. John’s mouth went dry. Eventually John cleared his throat and Jamie took that as his signal to leave. He didn’t look back once at John as he left and John half-wished that he’d thought of some excuse to make him stay.

“Cut it out,” John told himself that night as he got ready for bed, thoughts of Jamie still on his mind. “Seriously, you need to cut this out.”

Yeah, like that was going to work.

 

 

 

A few evenings later, Jamie paused after his daily update on the books. “What happened to Mickey Colombo?” he asked with a studied nonchalance.

John looked at Jamie. “Who’s Mickey Colombo?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard the name before.

Jamie’s nostrils flared and he held himself stiffly until he got his face under control. “He is—he was—the floor manager at the Water Mill Club. He didn’t show up for work and a new manager has replaced him.”

“Hm,” John said. “Sounds like the man realized gambling wasn’t for him.”

“You—” Jamie started.

“Are we done here?” John said, standing up in a clear dismissal. “I’ve got dinner to attend to.”

 “Yes, sir,” Jamie said. John could see that he was fit to boil, but he wasn’t John’s problem. If Jamie wanted to be a mobster, the sooner that he learned not to ask unwanted questions, the better.  

After all, Jamie was exceptionally bright—maybe too bright—and a very fast learner. But he was too soft-hearted by far. He’d have to learn that the world wasn’t an especially comfortable place sooner or later.

 

 

 

Dinner was with out-of-town guests—the kind that brought their own muscle and checked every exit and entrance before sitting down. John had brought Al and Joe with him, and they hung back once John met with his guests, their muscle standing off to the side as well and eyeing Al and Joe suspiciously.

“Max, George,” John said, shaking their hands.

“John, great to see you,” Max said, smiling widely. Max and John had grown up together, both of them feisty kids who’d used any excuse to start a brawl. They’d gotten into a lot of trouble when they were kids—trouble that John always thought of fondly.

Max had moved to Chicago years ago and risen up through the rankings of the Scalise family and George was the second-in-command for the head of the Scalise family. George was here to provide the authority to Max’s long-standing relationship for what they were about to propose.

But first, there were pleasantries to make as wine and food were ordered. “Congratulations on your marriage,” John said to Max. He’d been invited to the ceremony a few months ago, but unable to make it to Chicago at the time.

Max’s chest puffed out proudly. “Yeah, Jillian’s a complete doll. I’m the luckiest man in the world—we’re already expecting one.”

“Congratulations,” John said. “We’ll have to celebrate.” He waved over a server and quickly ordered some champagne, which all three of them toasted in honor of Max.

Once they settled into the meal, George threw Max a look and Max cleared his throat and put down his napkin. “We’re here on an unofficial scouting mission,” Max said. John nodded at him to continue. “We’re looking at St. Louis.”

St. Louis was run by a man named Nicky Calabrese. There wasn’t much lost love between John and Nicky, which Max was well aware of. “I’m listening,” John said.

“We don’t like the way that he’s running things,” Max said. “It’s bad for business and he’s been getting a little aggressive with how far his territory goes.” John nodded, thinking over the proposal that was imminently coming. “For some time, we’ve been thinking of the best way to manage this. Nicky isn’t much for reason. We’re thinking about solidifying our control in St. Louis. There’s no need to decide right now, but do you want in?”

“I don’t disagree about Nicky,” John said. “Let me think it over.”

 

 

 

At the end of the meal, John shook Max’s and George’s hands and wished them a good trip back to Chicago. John didn’t say anything on the drive home, Al and Joe sitting there quietly while he thought through the possibilities. Only once he got inside, did he turn to Joe and say, “I want Percy, Joseph, Mattia, Lorenzo and Jamie here, now. If they have to be woken up, make sure that they get woken up.”

“Absolutely,” Joe said and then disappeared.

Thirty minutes later, the men that John trusted most were in his study, all standing a bit anxiously as John related the conversation that he’d had. “Before I make any decisions, I want to know exactly what we’re looking at here,” he said. “What are they taking per year? How many guys will have to be knocked off?” John had already started mentally calculating how much more he could bring in if he had a part-share in St. Louis.

But expansion was risky—not to mention that John had carefully built up his relationships in St. Louis. He succeeded because he’d created success for not just his people, but the cops as well. He’d have to start all over in St. Louis. And there was the issue of any binding alliance. Working with another gang was an inherently risky proposition. Right now Chicago needed them because John kept his business quiet, unlike those jokers in the Windy City, shooting up police joints and making trouble for everyone.

“I’m not taking the heat if it won’t be worth it,” John told his group. “So I want to know exactly what the cost will be and what the gain will be.”

 

 

No one slept much that night—Jamie ferrying information between everyone and drawing up diagrams as necessary. John and Joe were camped out in John’s office, running numbers. But around four a.m., John called it for the night and told everyone to go home.

John flipped through the papers in front of him tracing out Nicky’s organization when the door slowly opened. John irrationally hoped that it was Jamie, even though he knew it was probably Al coming down to check in one more time before going to bed.

“Al, I’m fine,” John said.

“I’ll pass the message along,” Jamie said, his voice amused. John looked up to see Jamie standing on the threshold of the room, a large plate of bread and cheese in his hand. “Your cook left some extra food in the kitchen, I thought I’d bring it by before I left.”

“Come on in,” John said. “Have a seat and have some of it yourself. If I eat all of that, I’ll lose my girlish figure.”

“I doubt that anyone would compare your figure to that of a girl’s,” Jamie said as John stood and located his whiskey decanter. He held up the bottle to Jamie who nodded wryly and then he poured them both glasses.

“Wow,” Jamie said after a sip. “This is the real McCoy.”

“Scotland’s finest,” John said.

“Wow,” Jamie said again, savoring the next sip. John watched him, Jamie’s throat working for each swallow that he took. His hair had started to slip out of its style, the ends loosely curling and for once, he looked young and loose, instead of severe. “I haven’t had much opportunity to try whiskey like this,” he said finally. “It’s something else.”

“If you like this, then you’ll have to try something else,” John said, standing again. He grabbed another glass and poured out a small measure from a different decanter, which he handed to Jamie.

Jamie’s eyes went wide when he had that one. “That’s incredible.”

John couldn’t help himself—he poured out tastings from some of his other whiskeys, until half-a-dozen glasses sat in front of Jamie and his eyes were almost as big as his head and John had to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Jamie asked.

“I don’t think that I’ve ever seen you look impressed before,” John said, thoughtfully.

“That can’t be true,” Jamie said, protesting, although it seemed to John that there was more than a hint of sheepishness in it as well.

“I’m not complaining,” John said. “I like that you aren’t phased by much—you learn quickly and you’re focused. But it’s nice to feel like I can still impress you if I need to.”

“Me?” Jamie asked. “Or anyone?” But when he asked, he didn’t look at John, his eyes instead on the glass that he held in his lap.

“You,” John said. Jamie looked up and met John’s eyes. “It’s nice to see you looking happy.”

Jamie twisted the glass in front of him and looked at it before he took a long sip closing his eyes. “I don’t know if I’m happy all that often,” he said, but he said it with a soft smile that charmed John.

“Well, I’m glad that I could provide that service,” John said. Jamie huffed out a laugh and then his face turned serious.

“John,” he said and leaned towards John. John couldn’t help but mirror the movement, couldn’t stop himself from glancing down at Jamie’s lips, exposing himself for what he truly wanted.

Neither one of them moved for a long moment until Jamie cut eye contact. “I should—I should go,” he said and stood abruptly. “But thank you for letting me try these.”

“You’re welcome,” John said. The night felt unfinished, like it had been filled with endless possibilities not thirty seconds ago, all suddenly cut short. But maybe it was for the best to avoid the path before they walked down on it. After Jamie left, John turned off the lights with a sigh and went to bed as well.

 

 

 

 

But even with Chicago’s invitation hanging over their heads, business went on as usual—the customary game around town with the police, the running of John’s clubs and the small squabbles inside and outside of John’s organization. One group of boys had become particularly troublesome—some gang that called themselves the Williams Street boys, running their operations out of Williams Street.

The boys were young, the oldest of the group not even twenty, and they ran some card and dice games and took bets on the races. John wanted it nipped it in the bud or brought into the fold before they ended up with another South Franklin Gang.

“What do you want to do, John?” Percy asked. Percy thought that they had potential, could become assets to the gang if John approached them right.

“Alright, set up a meeting,” John said. Jamie stood silently in the background—he hadn’t said a word since Percy and John had started discussing the Williams Street boys but yet, John’s awareness had remained pinpointed on him, unwavering for even a second.

“I think that this is good, John,” Percy said. “They’d be idiots to turn you down.”

“And yet, we must be prepared for them to do so,” John said. Percy nodded back at Jamie who excused himself.

“We’ll set it up,” Percy said. “They’ll listen to reason.”

 

 

A few days later, Percy had set up the meeting with Peter Trousdale, the leader of the Williams Street boys. Peter was young, and he looked impossibly young when he stood next to Jamie, but he’d already shown that he could make something of himself. By all accounts, his cards club was bringing in some serious cash. He’d brought a few of his muscle guys, all guys with big muscles but no brains that made Peter probably feel better. But both John and Peter knew that if John wanted Peter dead, Peter would be dead.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Trousdale,” John said. He pulled out a pack of Chesterfields and Peter accepted it and a light. “I trust that you know why you are here.” John paused until Peter nodded. “Rather than me listing your options at this juncture, why don’t you provide me with some suggestions as to how you will resolve our disagreement.”

Peter swallowed, but kept his face stern, the bravado holding firm. “Well, Mr. Rossi, we didn’t realize that we were on your territory.” At John’s raised eyebrow, Peter stumbled slightly before continuing. “Which we should have—and we want to apologize and make things right. We’re offering you ten percent of the profits.”

“That doesn’t even cover what you would owe for rent, let alone for the racket that you’ve made over there,” John said.

“Twenty percent,” Peter said after a pause.

“Fifty,” John said.

“Fifty? Are you crazy?” Peter asked. Al cleared his throat and shifted so that he and his holstered gun were in Peter’s line of sight. “Look, we have to cover our cost of operations. I have to pay the people who work there or else there’s no money coming to you at all.”

“Now that you’ve shown the market what’s out there, we could go in there and set up our own operations. No trouble at all. And right now, you’re probably paying off some of the lower coppers. But what’s going to happen when someone tells the big brass. Maybe they let it go. Maybe they want more money. Maybe they shut you down completely. Fifty percent doesn’t look so bad then,” John said.

Peter’s jaw clenched. “And you would be one telling the brass?”

John smiled. “I don’t associate with those rats. I’m just saying that it would be a shame for it to happen.”

“I can do forty,” Peter said.

“Let’s start there,” John said. “I’ll send one of my boys as extra protection.” They both knew that any man that John sent was really there to make sure that John wouldn’t be cheated. But Peter was smart enough to realize that John’s threat was entirely valid and that receiving sixty percent of the money made would be infinitely better than none.

“I appreciate you looking out for me,” Peter said and inclined his head. John nodded back.

 

 

That night, buoyed by the easy negotiations with Peter Trousdale, John let Percy and Joe talk him into going out to the Blue Spades Club for some celebratory drinks and girls. It was a night—the drinks coming out strong and everyone in a good mood. The girls knew it too, cozying up with John’s men, although John declined any of their attentions, preferring to smoke and drink to his heart’s content.

The girls had just finished up one of their burlesque numbers, the crowd cheering and hollering when Jamie appeared at their table. “Jamie, you coming or going?” John said, buzzed enough that it came out as a drawl and an invitation.

“I—ah,” Jamie said, stopping short, and he looked back at John in an almost confused wonder before he shook himself. “You need to leave—all of you.”

“What’s happening?” John asked, immediately all business.

“There’s a raid coming, it’ll be here any minute—one of my contacts just told me,” Jamie said, his voice in a low whisper.

“Joe, get anyone important out of here now,” John said.

Joe immediately stood up and then unobtrusively began making his way around the room, whispering in the ears of several local politicians and cops who would not be happy to be arrested by their brethren. John’s table got up quietly but quickly, dispersing as well, and John started heading for the side of the room, to the stage side door, so that he could unobtrusively make himself scarce.

Before John got there, the main door to the club flew open, and a hoard of policemen ran through, yelling to the crowd to stop where they were. The crowd, of course, instantly panicked and the policemen tried to herd them where they wanted. One policeman saw John near the back and yelled, “John Rossi! Stop where you are.”

John hadn’t listened to the police when he was a kid—he sure as hell wasn’t going to start listening to them now. He took off in a run, opening up the door in front of him and dashing through it. Jamie was close behind and when John started to run down the hall, Jamie grabbed his arm.

“Not that way! They’ll have people on all sides of the building—come with me!” Jamie dragged John down a hallway and then pulled him into a little side door into a closet.

The closet was filled with dames’ costumes—flouncy skirts and dresses with bunched up material every way that John turned. “To the back,” Jamie whispered and John let himself be moved to the back, until they were obscured from a casual observer who might happen to open the closet door. That being said, in John’s experience, the cops were unlikely to go so far for a simple bust. They would arrest a few people, kick everyone out and make up a stink. And in the morning, John would be pissed about it—angry that such careful planning had gone to waste, annoyed at their contacts in the department who’d failed to warn John or stop the raid.

But right now, right here, with Jamie pressed up tight against John, he couldn’t regret any of it. Not with the smell of Jamie so near—like fresh soap and sweat and John couldn’t help but take a deep breath of it. “You’re so close,” Jamie whispered, his breath shaky.

“Do you wish that I were farther?” John asked.

When Jamie shook his head, John moved in even closer, so that there was almost no space between them and the wall.

“Down here!” someone yelled in the hallway outside. John instinctively covered Jamie’s body with his own, even as Jamie froze beneath him, both of them holding their breaths.

There was the sound of someone running and then another person or two running after them, followed by the sound of the door out to the alley slamming shut several times.

Neither of them moved for a long time and when John finally did, it was to look back at Jamie, instead of the door, who was looking right at him.

“You could be the devil himself,” Jamie whispered slowly, “and I would still find you tempting.”

“Is that a bad thing?” John whispered back.

“I can’t think of anything worse,” Jamie said.

“Personally, I’m not good at restraining myself from temptation,” John whispered. Jamie was pressed up close, still, even though they had more space, and his breathing was harsh and abrupt. “I have a tendency, to take,” he leaned in even closer now, so that there was barely an inch of space between his lips and Jamie’s, “what I want.”

He waited there, their combined breaths loud in the air, until Jamie gave a strangled cry. “Sometimes, I hate you so much. But I can’t stop thinking about you. I never stop thinking about you,” Jamie said and before John could parse it out, Jamie kissed him. It was a biting, painful kiss that John surged into, pushing Jamie until he was flush against the wall. “I think about you all day long, what you look like under that suit,” Jamie said, in between kisses, “how you moaned when you ate that moll of yours out,” another kiss, longer and when Jamie pulled back, John tasted the metallic tang of blood on his lips, “at night it’s the worst—I can’t get you out of my head.”

“So, then, do something about it,” John said and Jamie, as efficient as always, undid their pants and stroked them. Jamie’s hands were painfully good and each hitched off sound that Jamie made drove John madder than sin itself.

When Jamie came, he bit John’s neck hard enough to hurt, but he soothed it with his tongue. That, combined with Jamie’s hands, drove John quickly over the edge.

As they both stood there, leaning against the wall and each other, their legs barely supporting their own weight, John fervently wished for a bed that they could both tumble into, and Christ, wasn’t he getting old.

“Let’s go back to my place,” John said, nuzzling Jamie under his right ear. “Round two, some food, a more comfortable place than a closet…”

“I—I can’t,” Jamie said. “Not tonight.”

“Why, you have a better offer?” John said, smirking.

“Ha,”  Jamie said. “I just can’t tonight—I have unavoidable plans. But,” he leaned in for a kiss that started chaste and then escalated its way into dirty, “if the offer’s still on the table, I’ll take you up on it another time.”

They made out a little longer, necking like teenagers, until they were both reasonably certain that the police were gone and that they had finally made themselves halfway presentable. There was no hiding their dirty clothes, but they tucked everything back in and then subtly emerged from the closet. The coast was clear.

 

They left the back exit, sirens still wailing from the front of the building, but the cops hadn’t stuck around the back. By unspoken agreement, they split up, and John took a left down the alley way and emerged onto 15th] Street. Another half block down, at the intersection of McGee, Al stood waiting on the side of the street with Gio, John’s chauffer. Al had a long suffering look on his face.

“Boss, how can I protect you if you don’t let me do my job?” he said. It was a tired argument, one that Al made every time that John demanded privacy.

“Sometimes the moment calls for quick action,” John said. “You’re there to protect me, but sometimes you have to trust my instincts,” John said.

Al made a face at that.

John wasn’t ready to go home, so he had Al take him to a twenty-four hour diner on Lydia Street for a late night snack. Even as exhaustion coursed through John’s veins and he pretended polite conversation with Al, John’s mind was on Jamie—on those perfect lips, kissing, the feel of Jamie pressed up against him.

He almost felt giddy—like he’d felt when he’d slept with his first girl. He wanted to sing it to the streets, shout it from the rooftops. But instead he ate his roast beef sandwich and thought about when he’d see Jamie next.

 

 

The next morning, when Al admitted Jamie into John’s study, Jamie hesitated when the door closed behind him. When he looked up, he was biting the edge of his lips, a sign of nervousness that made something thump in John’s heart.

They both looked at each other for a long time—John reliving the moment when they’d first kissed, that heady push and pull. He wanted to stand up, pull Jamie into his arms and make him fall apart. But instead, John tempered himself.

“I have something for you,” John said. He pushed over a box to Jamie. Jamie looked quizzically at John. “Go on, open it. It’s not a bomb, I promise.”

Jamie carefully opened up the box, a wary look on his face. When he got it opened, he let out a small gasp and he looked at the watch inside it longingly before he closed it and sighed.

“I can’t accept that,” Jamie said.

“Why not?” John asked, although he could take a reasonable guess. But John wanted to spoil him. John wanted to mark Jamie as his, show him off. Surely, Jamie could understand that.

“I can’t,” Jamie said more finally. He looked up now at John. “I liked what we did last night. I want to do it again. But please, don’t give me any gifts. I can’t accept them.”

John was at a loss for words. No one had ever refused one of his gifts before. In fact, many people had explicitly requested gifts from him.

“I—” John started and then he saw Jamie starting to gird himself for a fight. One of John’s greatest strengths was knowing which battles to fight, so he let it go and changed tact. “Alright, no gifts. Can I take you out to dinner tonight? Does that count as a gift?”

Jamie’s mouth opened and closed and then he smiled shyly at Jamie. “Yes, dinner is allowed.”

 

 

They went to dinner at Giovanni’s and John arranged for them to be seated in the back, to give them a nice illusion of privacy. When John gestured for Jamie to sit down, Al removed himself a respectful distance away, where he could still see both John and each entry way into the room.

Jamie looked at Al and then back at John. “I trust Al with my life,” John said. “Don’t worry about him.”

“And what about everyone else?” Jamie asked dryly, but he sat down and John followed.

“Tell me about yourself,” John asked once the waiter had brought them wine and taken their orders.

Jamie shrugged, a movement of involuntary discomfort. “What’s there to say? I grew up. I got a job and then another one.”

“Maybe I just want to hear you talk,” John said, smiling devilishly. “You can even make up things.”

That got an honest laugh out of Jamie and he looked a little looser. “Well, I—I’m from a little up north. My ma raised me—she’s the best woman in the world.”

“They always are,” John agreed and Jamie nodded firmly at him before continuing. Jamie gave a meandering account of his childhood, odd jobs at local stores as he studied in school, summers spent running around. Unspoken was his father, or lack thereof. John wondered if that’s where the relation to Sal came in or if it was on his mother’s side. Neither was appropriate to ask and although John could have gotten an answer through Sal, it seemed irrelevant and needlessly hurtful.

They took a break when dinner arrived, heavenly smelling osso buco with delicious rolls, scented with garlic. Jamie’s face was rapturous as he took each bite and John loved that he hadn’t yet come to take this for granted.

When dessert came, a perfect and light tiramisu, the look on Jamie’s face sent blood rushing places that it was not appropriate for in public. Part of John wanted to say to hell with it. He could easily lean across the table and kiss Jamie and begin undressing him. He could order everyone to leave the restaurant. It would be as simple as snapping his fingers. Instead, John closed his eyes and steeled himself.

“More?” John said, once Jamie had demolished his. John’s portion still had more than half remaining and any inclination to consume it was dwarfed by John’s desire to watch Jamie consume it. Jamie accepted it without any real arm-twisting. But when Jamie moaned during one bite, enough was enough.

“Al,” John said. Al was at his side in a second. “Have the car brought around.”

 

 

They didn’t talk much on the car ride to John’s. Jamie sat next to John and where his leg pressed against John’s, it was like fire. John wanted to turn and kiss Jamie, take his clothes off, have him right here and right now. And Jamie wasn’t helping matters, his hand resting on John’s leg, slowly but surely ascending towards John’s groin.

Before John could say or do something foolish, they finally pulled up in front of John’s house. By the grace of God, they were both able to smoothly make their way from the car to the house. But once Al opened the door for them and they walked through, Jamie pressed John into the wall and kissed him hard. John couldn’t help but smile when they pulled apart, panting, several minutes later, with Al nowhere in sight.

John pressed his hand against the small of Jamie’s back, moving them out of the entranceway. Jamie knew where to go—there was no question of that—but Jamie let John direct and John let his hand linger down to the swell of Jamie’s bottom. A sharp intake of air indicated that John’s instincts had been spot on.

By the time that they’d made it back to John’s room, John was certain that everyone else in the house had made themselves scarce, so John felt free to say Jamie’s name loudly as he reeled him in for another kiss.

“You’re perfect,” John said and reached for Jamie’s jacket, unbuttoning it and slipping it off.

“John,” Jamie said, gasping, as John began kissing his way down Jamie’s neck, removing Jamie’s collar and then unbuttoning the lovely silk shirt that John had gotten Jamie.

“Every time I put on one of your shirts, I think of you taking it off,” Jamie confessed, which John rewarded with a bite to Jamie’s clavicle. From there it got more desperate, Jamie’s undershirt coming off before John stripped his coat and shirts off so quickly, he thought he might hurt himself.

And there was Jamie, right in front of him, undressed, like John had been wanting since the moment he’d first seen him. Jamie was dark smooth skin that John had to touch and so he did. He started his way at the top and kissed his way down, tracing until he got to the top of Jamie’s pants.

John looked up to see Jamie’s eyes dark and fixed on John. It was a heady sensation, all of Jamie’s attention focused on John and, for once, Jamie was compliant as John helped him out of his pants before he tossed them on the floor.

“I’ll have to iron those,” Jamie said dryly and entirely too nonchalant for John’s liking, so John took Jamie’s cock into his mouth and applied himself to the task at hand. Jamie was loud—gratifyingly so—and when he came, he moaned so loudly they probably heard it in Chicago.

Jamie lay there blissed out on John’s bed, panting, as John finished undressed himself, kicking his pants and socks and underpants off to the side. When Jamie finally had gathered himself enough to focus on John, he frowned. “I wanted to watch you undress,” he said.

“Another time,” John said, leaning in and kissing Jamie. “I’ve got plans for now.” He leaned over to his bedside table and pulled out a small jar of lotion. “May I?”

Jamie looked at the jar. “I—uh—yes.”

John frowned. “We don’t have to do anything that you don’t want.”

“Yes,” Jamie said quickly. “I do. Yes.”

John watched Jamie for a long moment and Jamie kicked out a leg suddenly and reeled John in so fast that John stumbled forward, sprawling on top of Jamie. “I said yes,” Jamie said more forcefully.

“Well, if you twist my arm about it,” John said, but he kissed Jamie for a long time, until both of them were sweaty and panting and John thought that if he didn’t get inside of Jamie he would die.

John took the lotion and began to slowly open Jamie up. When Jamie was gasping and bucking against him, a small eternity later, John finally slicked himself up and carefully entered him.

“Jamie,” John said, his voice a raspy whisper, once he was seated. Jamie pulled him down into a bruising kiss as John began to move.

If John had any hope of acquitting himself well or not embarrassing himself, it wasn’t borne out. John felt that he had barely gotten started when his orgasm overcame him, everything going white and ecstatic, each nerve in his body firing at once. When John came to himself next, he was slumped on top of Jamie, who was absent-mindedly petting his hair as John lay there.

With great effort, John pulled out and rolled off of Jamie to the side. They both lay there, quiet, just catching their breath for a few long minutes. Finally, when John felt something approaching coherence, he turned to Jamie. “I wish that I could say that it’s been a while,” he said. Jamie laughed at that and curled his body towards John’s.

“I think that you did alright,” he said. “For an old man.”

“An old man?” John said. “An old man? I am ten years older than you.”

“So you say,” Jamie said diffidently.

“An old man?” John said, more to himself, and then after thinking it over, he lunged at Jamie, holding him against the bed and kissing him until Jamie was panting again. “Who’s the old man now?” John asked.

The look that Jamie gave him was all heat and John didn’t hesitate to return it.

 

 

By the end of the week, after numerous hushed meeting with his men, not least of which included Lorenzo, his enforcer, John’s men were of two minds about St. Louis:

“It’s a great opportunity, boss,” Joseph said. “They have a good take—and if you run things right, smooth things over with the brass there, then you’ll be able to do even better.”

“They do have the river right there,” Percy said. The virtues of the Mississippi river had been extolled at nauseum. The river did present opportunities to get product out of the city, but it would have to be managed right. They had their own river right there in Kansas City and it sure hadn’t turned to be one magical carpet ride out of the city.

“I think that you have to be careful,” Joe said. “The more we’re in charge of, the bigger the opportunity that we present for the feds. Right now, we mutually ignore each other. But they don’t like the Chicago guys and if we go in for St. Louis, they’re going to start looking at us.”

Everyone dismissed Joe’s thoughts about the feds. The feds had been threatening to go after the mob for years—they’d made ingresses here and there, but they had bigger things on their hands. Still, it would have been foolish to discount them completely.

Jamie was quiet in the corner. John wanted to ask—but no, that was ludicrous, Jamie was smart but he had little experience with the realities of mobster warfare. Joe, Percy, Lorenzo, they had been there through the struggles and successes. And yet, John wanted to know.

That night, Jamie stayed after everyone had departed and even though John could have asked his opinion—finally found out what he wanted to know after wondering it all day, he suddenly realized that he didn’t want to know. Something told him that he shouldn’t ask and John hadn’t gotten to where he was without respecting his instincts.

“Hungry?” John asked. Dinner had been hours ago and he’d noticed that Jamie had barely eaten.

“Not for food,” Jamie said and he closed the distance between them, kissing John until they were both panting, and he began nipping at John’s neck, Jamie’s five o’clock shadow scrapping John just right.

When they got to John’s room, John pressed Jamie against the door and Jamie arched into him, his hands already moving to undress John. John wanted nothing more than to take Jamie where they stood, but he maneuvered them inside his room, the door closing behind them.

 

In the morning, John got up early and left behind a sleeping Jamie in his bed. He telephoned Joe to let him know of his decision—then he called up Max, long distance to Chicago. Even though it was early, Max’s housekeeper got him on the telephone quickly.

“You ever heard of business hours, you son of a bitch,” Max said grousing, but he seemed to be in good spirits.

“I wanted to make sure that you started the day with some pep in your step,” John said. “Bring your boys on down, let’s talk business.”

“That’s what I like to hear, Johnny,” Max said, his voice brightening up. “We’ll get our forces marshalled and then we’ll come to you.”

 

 

This time when Max and George came, Roberto Scalise joined them, along with a host of other men, all serious-faced and posturing when they got to John’s house like they’d never met another gang before. Max grimaced and shrugged in apology.

Roberto and Johnny were well acquainted—in the way that one acquainted oneself with important potential allies or enemies. They’d cooperated in the past on shipments in and out of the Illinois and Missouri areas and hadn’t killed each other over it. Like John, Roberto was a big guy—although a scar bisected his lip and made him look even more thuggish than the barely hidden gun holster and expensive suits already did. It was an attitude that Roberto carried through his dealings as well—he preferred violence to diplomacy. A point where he and John differed.

“Roberto,” John said in acknowledgment. Roberto reached for John’s hand and shook it.

“We appreciate your hospitality,” Roberto said in his deep and gravelly voice.

“We are honored to host you,” John said. And then the introductions began. John had his guys all there—except for Jamie, who’d been needed to deal with a situation at the Lyon facility. It took a while to get through all of the formalities and only then did Roberto and John sit down at the table, their men on either side of them, to discuss any specifics.

The negotiations went well—percentages of profit thrown back and forth, manpower, authority. It’d been a while since John had had negotiations with someone as experienced as his gang and he found that he was almost smiling as he and Roberto went back and forth.

Roberto and his muscle stayed for a few days in John’s house. No one wanted word to get out, so John kept the information amongst his men on a need-to-know basis. Occasionally Joe or Percy left to deal with their operations, but few people came to the house, by design. It felt odd and it took John a day or two to realize that it felt odd not because he wasn’t focused on the minutia of his operations but because he’d become so accustomed to Jamie’s presence. And he hadn’t seen Jamie since before Roberto and his gang had arrived.

Once he realized his missed Jamie, it became a more than conspicuous gap. It wouldn’t have been fair for John to assume that Jamie would come to his bed each night—like he was some dame who had tied John down—but John wanted him there. He could have ordered Jamie to come to his house, but to what end?

He knew that Jamie was busy during the days while John and his men negotiated—helping run the facilities and fix problems in Percy and Joe’s absence, but it felt off. It felt oddly deliberate. And yet, if he had said something, Percy and Joe would have thought that John was crazy. Was he crazy? After all, he didn’t even expect to see Joe every day and Joe was the closest thing to a brother or a friend that John had.

So, John said nothing. And negotiations continued.

When they finally hammered everything out, the percentages, the men, the power, or at least enough of it that they wouldn’t be too long in fighting over the remaining crumbs, John and Roberto stood up and shook hands, their men applauding around them.

Roberto laughed and John called for drinks. They toasted to their new venture.

Roberto and his men left late that afternoon to drive back to Chicago. When Jamie appeared later that evening, a stack of papers and folders in his hands, somehow John wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t surprised when Jamie followed John up to his bedroom—although he was pleased enough to not look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

 

For a few weeks, business seemed to go on as usual, but mixed in with the normal serving of management issues for John’s clubs and distilling facilities, John was also focused on the plans for the St. Louis business. Figuring out who was trusted to take out Nicky Calabrese. Which of Nicky’s associates needed to be removed. Not to mention the logistics of moving and expanding operations. Max was a busy man, running between Chicago and Kansas City so much, John was surprised that he didn’t have perpetual whiplash.

And Jamie was there to help—assisting with the day-to-day operations in Kansas City. Whatever oddness that John had felt during the St. Louis negotiations about Jamie seemed to have disappeared until he stepped into his office to see Jamie going through some files. It wasn’t unusual or anything that John would taken note of except that the files that Jamie was going through weren’t related to anything in Kansas City. They were the St. Louis files—whatever Jamie was looking for, he’d be stuck looking for quite a while unless John took pity on him.

“Wrong cabinet,” John said, trying not to laugh.

Jamie’s head snapped up. “Which one is it?” he asked after a second.

“For which facility? The Cotton Hill Club?”

“No, the Blue Spades Club,” Jamie said.

John motioned to the left of his desk. With an a-ha! Jamie deposited several pieces of paper into one of the folders. “These files will be the death of me,” he said.

“The death of you?” John asked. “The death of me.”

Jamie gave John a wry look that made John want to pull him close and kiss him.

“Come on, let’s go to bed,” John said. “You can finish your paperwork up in the morning.”

Jamie gave a long suffering sigh, but he was smiling too much for John to take him seriously, and he let himself be led from the room to John’s bedroom.

 

 

 

As the drop to St. Louis approached, Jamie got jumpier—harder to pin down during the day but almost always at John’s house after the sun went down. If it had been someone else, someone who John didn’t know, John would have thought—it didn’t matter what John would have thought. It wasn’t that.

Everyone was busy—John and Jamie included—and under a good deal of stress. That was just the way of the world, whether John liked it or not. Slowly, they got closer to St. Louis. People hired, cops paid off, supplies moved. It would get easier once Nicky was taken out, John told himself, knowing it was a lie even if he didn’t know all the ways in which it was.

 

 

When John woke up the day before St. Louis, he felt strangely calm, like he was almost outside of himself. Jamie had left early that morning, kissing John’s shoulder as he snuck out, and John had laid there, missing Jamie until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He tried not to think about anything else—not about what Jamie was doing or what John needed to do.

It was a relief to see Jamie a few hours later, when he knocked on John’s office door at the Orleans Flower Club. John waved him into the office and Jamie complied after a few seconds, holding a large stack of papers. Jamie didn’t say anything, an odd look on his face that John couldn’t parse.

He put the papers down on John’s desk and John glanced at them—they were the receipts from the Williams Street boys, nothing worth looking at then.

“Will I see you tonight?” John asked. He’d meant it to come out light-hearted, but his voice was low and serious.

“Yes,” Jamie said and his voice was just as serious as John’s.

When Jamie left the room, John gave into his hunch, the inevitability of it leaving him bleak. He opened up his left hand drawer, where he kept all of the St. Louis files and he thumbed through the folders. They mostly contained things like agreements with Chicago, lists of Nicky’s operations, cops who they could bribe, which of John’s men would be in St. Louis and the like.

John didn’t have to search long to find what he was looking for. There, in the middle of an innocuous folder with the names and information on each of Nicky’s men, were three wrinkled pieces of paper, plain, except for the word “Don’t” which had been written on one of them with a pencil. The word was in Jamie’s handwriting.

John looked at it a long time.

 

 

John had one of his men go pick up Jamie and tried not to count down the minutes until Jamie arrived. While John waited, he looked through the stack of papers on his desk. He picked up the phone. He put it down. He picked it up again. He thought about calling for Al—something, anyone to distract him.

He had finally started writing a letter to his sister when the door to his study slowly creaked open. Standing there in the center was Jamie, his face expressionless. John stood up and then they both stopped, watching each other, wondering what the other was thinking.

Jamie couldn’t have known John’s suspicions. Or if he did, he was far more stupid than John had ever known him to be. And so, John marveled at Jamie’s bravery at taking on a job that could have likely gotten him killed. Could still have him killed. John could say one word to Al and have Jamie disappear—gone before anyone even knew that he had been missing.

By all account, John should have said the one word to Al. He’d known that something was different about Jamie since the moment he’d first seen him. It had just taken weeks and months to burrow down into why Jamie was different—why he stood out.

But that was neither here or there. Tomorrow, a decision would needed to be made, one way or the other. So John let himself smile and, reflexively, Jamie smiled back.

“Are you hungry?” John asked.

Jamie shook his head. “Let’s go to your room,” he said. John smiled wider at that.

 

They made their way upstairs, both quiet as if in unspoken agreement. John opened the door and Jamie slipped inside, crowding against John. John turned him back against the door and the door closed with a soft click that was soon lost as John leaned in to kiss Jamie.

The kiss deepened quickly and John pulled back reluctantly—he wanted to slow it down, take his time with Jamie.

“Bed,” he said. Jamie raised one eyebrow but allowed himself to be pushed towards the bed. John didn’t bother turning on any lights in the room—the moon shone brightly through John’s window and right there, between them, it felt like this was realer than anything that had come before.

Here, John could see Jamie—or James or whomever Jamie actually was—catalogue his face and the way that his hair felt against his fingers. John nipped at the skin under Jamie’s jaw and was pleased to see Jamie shudder.

“I want to see you,” John said and Jamie nodded, so John undressed him, taking care. Jamie’s eyes seemed wider and wider and when John let his fingers play with Jamie’s skin once he stripped of Jamie’s undershirt, Jamie let out a half-strangled moan.

“I want you like this forever,” John said once Jamie’s pants were removed.

“God help me,” Jamie said quietly, “but I do too.” He leaned up to kiss John, drawing him in tight and as they kissed, John let his hands roam, finding the nubs of Jamie’s nipples and teasing them as Jamie groaned into his mouth.

He moaned even louder when John knelt down and took him in his mouth. John took his time sucking off Jamie, taking Jamie to the edge and then pulling off before starting the whole process all over again until Jamie was begging and pleading with him. When John finally let Jamie come, Jamie gave a groan like a dying man and John sucked Jamie through all of it.

John pulled off Jamie and Jamie clutched at John, a look of decadent satisfaction on his face, before he kissed John.

John’s arousal changed from a background want to an immediately need and so he turned Jamie over and began opening Jamie up. He was too keyed up to take his time with it and thankfully Jamie wanted more, faster, harder, urging John on until John couldn’t take it another second and quickly unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his cock.

John pushed into Jamie with a grunt, dropping a kiss onto the gorgeous curve of Jamie’s spine before grabbing Jamie’s hips and anchoring himself. Each slide in felt like heaven—warm and tight—and John couldn’t help but thrust in hard. This right here—this was perfect—and if John had his choice of doing anything until the day he died, this would have been it.

All too soon, his orgasm came upon him and John was aware that he was babbling, unable to stop saying Jamie’s name until he came in Jamie, spending himself until he collapsed on Jamie.

When John was able to move again, he rolled over and Jamie followed him, sprawling across John’s chest and tracing designs. They were sweaty and should have cleaned up, but instead they lay there, talking about nothing in particular—Joseph’s perpetually mismatched socks, the upcoming winter, how John had always wanted to go west to California. Finally, they drifted off, still pressed together.

 

When John woke in the middle of the night, Jamie had curled up on his side next to John. John turned over so that he was pressed up against Jamie and he let his right hand fall over Jamie’s stomach, as if he could hold Jamie there. He wanted to stay awake until morning—as if that were the trick to keeping Jamie. But instead, his eyes closed despite himself and John fell asleep almost as soon as he matched his breathing to Jamie’s.

 

 

When John woke next, it was morning—the faint light coming in through his window that signaled dawn. Jamie was gone, his spot cold, and John couldn’t even pretend to himself that he was surprised.

There was no use in waiting around, John thought, so he got out of bed and went down to his office to make his first in a series of calls.

 

 

Joe burst into John’s office barely half-past seven. John was still on the phone with Chicago and so he held up his hand for Joe to stop. Joe immediately pulled short and waited.

“I’m sorry that you feel that way,” John said, “but I cannot budge on this.”

He listed to Roberto make a variety of disparaging comments about John’s genitalia and waited until Roberto seemed to lose energy. “Roberto, you can do what you want. I am merely passing along my concerns.”

By the time that John got off the phone, it was close to eight a.m. “Everything is going crazy out there,” Joe said. “Enforcers are holding off on your word—what is happening?”

“We are not moving against Nicky,” John said carefully. He picked up the mug of coffee that had been cooling since his housekeeper had brought it in what felt like a small eternity ago. “I have reason to believe that the police have gained knowledge of our plans. They are likely watching the St. Louis gang very closely and should we act against them, they will no doubt not just arrest our boys but build a case against myself and Roberto. St. Louis is a good city, but it’s not worth what I’ve built here.”

Joe’s mouth was wide-opened, dumbstruck. “How can you know?”

John leaned back in his chair. “I just do. Put out the word amongst our men. The operations are scuttled. Anyone in St. Louis, get them back before they get arrested.”

Joe opened his mouth and then stopped himself. “Are you sure, boss?”

“Get it done,” John said. “And get me Percy.”

Percy and Mattia showed up not five minutes later, both of whom wearing clothes that had clearly been thrown on in a rush, their collars askew and buttons half-done. The rest of the morning was spent with people running back and forth throughout John’s house, with Al and what felt like half of John’s muscle stationed at the front and back of John’s house.

By noon, it was decided. The Chicago outfit planned to go ahead with the St. Louis takeover and John didn’t see much point in trying to dissuade them. He had learned over the years that everyone was the master of their own fortune—and John could not stop the Chicago outfit from doing what they wanted. Percy and Joe were wringing their hands over the potential implications of having the outfit control two cities, coupled with the bad will from John pulling out.

But they didn’t know what John knew. Yes, perhaps it was foolish to rely so heavily on a hunch. However, Jamie hadn’t made an appearance that morning. And John would have bet his house that Jamie wouldn’t be found even if he’d put his men on it.

 

 

Later that evening, as John and Lorenzo discussed possible retribution plans that the Chicago gang might have on John, the phone rang. It’d been quiet now for a while, most of John’s men here at his house, and the sound startled everyone.

Percy was closest to the phone, he picked it up and identified himself. “Percy Lombardi,” he said. He frowned immediately at what was said and waved over John. “I’m putting John on,” Percy said and handed over the phone.

It was Officer O’Donnell, a man with three young daughters who had reluctantly accepted money to look the other way after his wife had given birth three times in three years. The police did not pay especially well for a man with a young family.

“I have to make this quickly,” Officer O’Donnell said in a low tone. “It’s just come through to the department that there’s been gang violence in St. Louis—five men have been arrested in St. Louis for the murder of Nicky Calabrese and ten or fifteen have been arrested in Chicago and St. Louis on accomplice and conspiracy charge. We have orders from the top down to come down on anything that we see. Just thought you should know.”

“Thank you,” John said. “I appreciate the information.”

Officer O’Donnell hung up quickly. “Joe, you get up to Chicago,” John said. “Take some men with you—figure out what’s happening.”

The next morning, Joe called John with the news: George had been arrested. Max had not. Roberto had been brought in for questioning. Several other of Roberto’s men had been arrested as well. It was a fucking mess, if John said so himself. And through it all, Jamie was conspicuously absent—at least to John.

 

 

John took Joe aside a few days after the St. Louis fiasco and explained what he suspected (knew) about Jamie.

Joe was furious, rage incarnate, but John made it clear that Jamie was to be left alone.

“Why?” Joe had said, his hands itching to wring someone’s throat.

“Because we don’t want any more trouble with the feds,” John said. “We’ve got enough trouble on our own hands.”

And it was true, although perhaps not the only reason why. It was unlikely that Joe was convinced by it, but he knew what was good and kept his mouth shut.

“I want you to find out everything that you know about him,” John said. “I want you to find out where he is—but you don’t tell anyone but me what happened. If anyone else brings him up, you say that I fired him, ok? You find out what Sal knows, but you don’t kill him.”

“You’re the boss,” Joe said in a way that said he was washing his hands of it.

Unsurprisingly, Joe didn’t find much of anything. Sal claimed ignorance of the photograph that Joe had shown him of Jamie, telling Joe that he’d never seen the guy.

 

 

It took a few weeks, but eventually everything returned to normal. Or at least as much of normal as anything could be in Kansas City. And then, one afternoon, during a lively discussion on their current distribution issues, an envelope came in the stack of mail for John.

“We’re making great sales of whiskey,” Percy said.

“Good,” John said. “That’s what I want to hear.”  John pulled the envelope out of the stack and looked at it curiously.

“Per usual, the cops are up our ass about it—but one of our guys came up with a great idea. We’re going to start putting the alcohol into life preserves,” Percy continued

“Very useful for getting up the river,” John said, smiling, as he played with the envelope.

Percy smiled right back. “That’s the idea.”

John opened the envelope pulling out a simple piece of hotel paper with a date and time on it. The date was just a few weeks out on a Saturday, the time 7:00 p.m. When John flipped the piece of paper over, there was only a number—331.

“What’s that?” Percy asked.

“Nothing,” John said. “Some kid’s prank.”

Percy rolled his eyes at the frivolity of youth and continued on. John put the paper into one of his desk drawers for later.

That night, John took at the paper and looked at it for a long time, trying to puzzle it out. The writing looked like it could have been Jamie’s—but was that just fanciful thinking? Even if it was, what did it mean? After flipping it over for what must have been the hundredth time, John’s eye was caught by the hotel’s name at the top of the paper. _St. Nicholas Hotel, 400 E. Jefferson Street, Springfield, Illinois_.

John laughed out loud at the simplicity of it. As always, Jamie continued to impress him. He folded up the piece of paper and carefully placed it in his wallet.

 

 

The night before Jamie’s date, John told Al that he would be leaving the next morning and would be gone for a day and that Al would need to stay behind.

Predictably, Al was irate. “How can I protect you if you just disappear?” Al asked. “Boss, have you gone crazy?”

Perhaps John had. Either way, he was unmoved by Al’s arguments.

 

 

As John drove to Springfield, he wondered what he was walking into. Jamie could have laid an easy ambush for him. It could have been someone other than Jamie, trying to see what they could get away with. And yet, for each mile that he drove, John’s heart felt lighter.

When John arrived at the St. Nicholas Hotel, requesting room 331, the clerk looked at him a little oddly. “Are you John?” he asked.

“Yes,” John said.

“Here’s your key,” the man said and handed it over. He didn’t request any further information and John declined the porter’s assistance in carrying his suitcase to his room. John warily took the elevator to the third floor and took a deep breath once he found room 331. He set his suitcase down and carefully pulled his gun of out of his holster, keeping it hidden in his jacket, as he used his other hand to slowly unlock the door.

When John opened the door, his heart stopped. There, sitting at the hotel desk, his head turned warily to the door, holding his own gun, was Jamie Romano.

John came inside and closed the door behind, holstering his gun. “Jamie,” John said.

“Theodore,” Jamie— _Theodore_ —said.

“Theodore,” John said.

“Or Theo,” Theo said.

“Theo,” John agreed.

Theo stood and when he got to John, he pulled John in by the lapels and kissed him so hard, their teeth clanked together. It was heaven.


End file.
